Jonathan Curry-Machado is coordinator of the British Academy Research Project ‘Commodities of Empire’, as well as an Associate Fellow of the Institute for the Americas (University College London). His research ranges from the history, identity and influence of migrant engineers in nineteenth century Cuba, in the context of transnational networks of trade, capital and technology; through comparative study of Cuba and Java; to rural society on the sugar frontier in the Hispanic Caribbean. His publications include the book Cuban Sugar Industry: Transnational Networks and Engineering Migrants in Mid-Nineteenth Century Cuba (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). He has also published articles relating to La Escalera conspiracy, and has undertaken contemporary research into socio-political and socio-cultural reasons for Cuba's continued stability in the face of crisis.

‘In cane’s shadow: commodity plantations and the local agrarian economy on Cuba’s mid-nineteenth century sugar frontier’, in Jonathan Curry-Machado (ed.), The Global and Local History of Commodities of Empire, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013

‘Introduction’, in Jonathan Curry-Machado (ed.), The Global and Local History of Commodities of Empire, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013

‘Catalysts in the Crucible: kidnapped Caribbeans, free black British subjects and migrant British machinists in the failed Cuban revolution of 1843’, in Nancy Naro (ed.), Blacks and National Identity in 19th Century Latin America, London: ILAS, 2003

Books:

The Global and Local History of Commodities of Empire, Cambridge Imperial and Post-colonial Studies Series, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013 (editor)

‘Sin azúcar no hay país: The Transnational Counterpoint of Sugar and Nation in Nineteenth Century Cuba’, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 84:1 (2007)

‘How Cuba Burned with the Ghosts of British Slavery: Race, Abolition and the Escalera’, Slavery and Abolition, 25:1 (2004)

Other Publications:

‘In cane’s shadow: the impact of commodity plantation on local subsistence agriculture on Cuba’s mid-nineteenth century sugar frontier’, Commodities of Empire Working Paper No.16, Milton Keynes & London: Open University & Institute for the Study of the Americas, 2010

‘Sub-imperial globalisation and the phoenix of empire: engineering and commerce in nineteenth century Cuba’, Commodities of Empire Working Paper No.2, Milton Keynes & London: Open University & London Metropolitan University, 2007

‘Surviving the “Waking Nightmare”: Securing Stability in the Face of Crisis in Cuba, 1989-2004’, Crisis States Working Paper 64, London: Crisis States Research Centre, London School of Economics, 2005